Album Review: Asian Death Crustacean – Baikal (Self Released)

London experimental metal 4-piece Asian Death Crustacean will be releasing their debut album, Baikal on June 26th 2020.

The forthcoming album combines their breadth of influences in extreme metal, electronic/ambient music and the London underground jazz scene into an exploration of the themes of metamorphosis and self-transformation.

Named after the world’s oldest and deepest lake located in the vast expanses of Siberia, the album’s title was chosen to evoke a sense of exploration into an immense and unknown space of simultaneous beauty and threat. Similarly, the artwork uses the motif of a sun to capture the inseparable duality of genesis and destruction on an all-engulfing scale. The sun also invokes the themes of Jungian symbolism, a journey of coming to terms with the internal dynamic tension of the many selves within one’s psyche.

Six parts, six of 2020’s most eclectic and fascinating tracks. There really hasn’t been anything quite like this. Not this year so far and it’s unlikely there will be for some time. probably until the next Asian Death Crustacean release!

Six ambient tracks that evoke all the senses while also delivering a thumping level of metal intensity. Complex rhythms, exhilarating melodies, bewildering hooks and no-nonsense percussion, Asian Death Crustacean are on fire here. Baikal is one of 2020’s must listens even before it is half done.

Each track is a confined slice of the journey but all together it becomes an epic trek. Part III alone is an 8+ minute wander through the madness that this band exude. Wonderful and infectious madness.

Especially when compared to Part IV’s gorgeous sun-drenched ambience. The slow dread that builds right at the end leading into Part V’s categorical heaviness. There’s no lightness or brightness here, it’s all kinds of dark and threatening noise but it really gets the head-banging. Going on for over 10 minutes, it is arguably the finest track of the six.

Part VI then ends things with a melancholic outro of gloomy sounding ambience.

Asian Death Crustacean – Baikal Full track Listing:

1. Baikal Part I
2. Baikal Part II
3. Baikal Part III
4. Baikal Part IV
5. Baikal Part V
6. Baikal Part VI

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